writing – Page 3 – The Countryman's Daughter

Theories put through the mill

Some beautiful stone troughs that stand in the garden of a reader who lives near Durham

I received some wonderful images of stone troughs from a reader who says: “I enjoyed your article on stone troughs as I have been puzzling over how on earth they were made, by whom, and who paid/got rewarded for making them with no more than manual tools. We have six such troughs of various sizes…We brought one small one from Durham, the rest were on site when we came here, origins unknown.”

As the pictures show, they make super containers for plants, flowers and herbs and nestle naturally into their surroundings, far more at home than a modern equivalent, don’t you think?

I’ve also been contacted about the huge millstone on the moor above Kildale. Reader John Buckworth got in touch a few weeks ago because he had been pondering about the massive, unfinished stone for more than 50 years. It has been chiselled out on one side, but left unfinished on the other, and had been abandoned far from any mill that would have been its ultimate destination. Why was it never finished or moved?

Mick Garratt, who blogs about his travels around the North York Moors, has wondered for years about the baffling millstone. He contacted me to discuss his theories and hopes someone reading this might shed more light upon the mystery.

“I’ve been really curious about that unfinished millstone too! I’ve written about it a few times on my blog and speculated some of my thoughts, but I still have so many questions that haven’t been answered,” he says.

On his blog, Mick mentions that in the 18th century there were two mills in Kildale. The first started life as a fulling mill, a process which thickened and matted together wool fibres, but once the wool industry declined the mill was converted into a bleaching mill to whiten linen cloth. The other mill was ‘the first recorded corn mill in Cleveland’, with the earliest record dating it to 1262, and another stating that it ‘was totally destroyed by a great inundation in 1321’ (A History of the County of York North Riding, Volume 2, ed. William Page, 1923). The corn mill was located near Old Meggison waterfall on the River Leven, north of Kildale village, while the bleaching mill was further down the valley, just below the current ‘Bleach Mill Farm’. On the night of 21st July 1840, the corn mill was wiped out and the bleaching mill severely damaged when, according to Bulmer’s History and Directory of North Yorkshire (1890), ‘Two artificial lakes or fish ponds, which added greatly to the charms of this picturesque vale, unable to bear the pressure of the water which the flood poured into the ponds, were completely swept away, and very considerable damage done by the water.’

Mick suggests: “Maybe the millstone was destined for the corn mill in Kildale but the flood of 1840 caused its manufacture to be abandoned. Purely a guess of course.”

Mick has another suggestion relating to the quality of the stone. “The North York Moors Historic Environment Record dates it to ‘post medieval’, which is any time between 1540 and 1799. The bedrock at this location is recorded as ‘undifferentiated sandstone, siltstone and mudstone’, none of which make particularly good millstones, but probably good enough for grinding proggin (cattle food). At Rievaulx, French burrstone (a sturdy limestone) was used for grinding wheat for flour, and millstone grit from the Derbyshire Peaks for proggin. Our unfinished millstone points then to a poor quality…Perhaps that’s the reason it was abandoned…perhaps a flaw was found.”

Mick also describes the method of carving a stone of sufficient quality to grind fine flour: “Once the millstone is shaped and transported to the mill, it would have to be finally dressed. The miller would ensure the grinding face was flat by proving it with a staff smeared with red rudd (a soft red stone collected from riverbeds and often used to colour front steps of cottages). Next, furrows or grooves would have to be chiselled out using a mill bill or pick. Furrows must be of the correct depth with a straight and sloping side. They act as scissors with those on the top stone during the grinding.”

If any of you have many further suggestions concerning in our mysterious millstone, I’d love you to get in touch via my contact page (above right).

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 9th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 7th May 2025

You can lead a horse to water

A drawing of Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey from Vanity Fair magazine in 1893. Sir Ralph of Thirkleby Hall, paid for a roadside water trough in the village *(Photo: Leslie Ward, public domain via Wikimedia Commons)*

A few weeks ago I wrote about how my best friend and I celebrate the longevity of our relationship by having an annual weekend away together.

Gurli Svith from Denmark wrote: “Your column on friendship touched me very much because I have a very good friend I have known since I was 14 and she was 12. She was going to start at my school and came to my home to ask if we could cycle together. That was the beginning and now being 76 and 74 we are still close friends. We do not meet very often but when we do it is as if we saw each other just yesterday. We can talk about everything, and we have helped each other through hard times. For many, many years we have given each other birthday presents, but sometimes we have not seen each other for two or three years so it is like Christmas when we are sitting there drinking tea, eating cakes and unwrapping our presents.”

Is it true that many people are closer to their best friends than their own family? The saying goes, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family, so if you could opt out of spending Christmas and Easter with relatives, would you? (I acknowledge that I might be opening a can of worms with that question!)

Let’s get back on safer ground with troughs. Regular reader Clare Powell says: “We do have a couple of stone troughs we bought in a farm sale in Rosedale in the 1980s (Paid more than we should have because my husband kept bidding against himself – much to the locals’ amusement!). We transported them in the back of a Volvo. No idea how old they are, so it was interesting to read your article. Like you, I never really thought about who made them, and how. And you’re right, your dad would have had the answer at his fingertips.”

He sure did, and I now have the space to tell you what I discovered inside his old file. There were a few cuttings, columns, and notes, one of which was in Dad’s handwriting dated 15th May 1993. He had written it during a phone call from a chap called Dick Thompson who lived in our village and whose family had made locally quarried stone troughs for years.

“Each trough was excavated with a pickaxe and drawn down to the road on a sledge,” he’d scribbled. “It took seven or eight days to make one trough – all sizes done. Circular pig troughs also made so pigs could eat together.” He added that the troughs were made on spec, bought mainly by farmers, although parish councils paid for communal troughs situated in villages.

Among other things, the file also contained a newspaper cutting from March 1973 written by the esteemed founder of the original Countryman’s Diary column, Major Jack Fairfax-Blakeborough.

“The wayside water troughs were a real blessing both to parched travellers and to horses,” he wrote, “Especially in the heat of the summer when roads sent up a cloud of dust. Many of the troughs were erected by landowners who knew their value to man and beast. Some of them have inscriptions which tell us of their donor and his consideration for horseflesh.”

He mentions one between Burnsall and Appletreewick in the Dales which has a Latin verse ‘De torrential in via bibet propteren exaltabit caput’ which translated means ‘He will drink at the spring on the way, and thereafter lift his head with joy’, which is the last line of Psalm 110 in the Old Testament. The Major (and my dad when he wrote about it 20 years later) could not shed any light on who had placed the trough there. Can any of our Dales contingent add any more detail about this particular trough?

Dad mentions another placed at Thirkleby near Thirsk, paid for by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey (1848-1916), 3rd Baronet of Thirkleby Hall, who was an accomplished engineer, historian and artist. Its inscription, with a bit of poetic license where the rhyme is concerned, reads: ‘Weary traveller bless Sir Ralph, who set for thee this welcome trough.’

I have a feeling we have a lot more to come on these once indispensable features of our countryside highways and byways.

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 2nd and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 30th April 2025

A little means a lot

My boys always write beautiful and meaningful words in the cards they give me on special occasions

Spring has sprung in earnest now, and as I write this, the sky is cloudless blue and the sun is beating down. Trees and flowers have burst into life, and the chattering birds are furiously building nests in preparation for the arrival of their young. Life is good!

It has been like this all week and is set to continue well into next. In the UK, because our weather is so unpredictable, we are extra grateful when we get a sustained patch of good weather and never take such things for granted.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that my favourite day of the year is the Spring Equinox because it represents a beacon of hope for good weather after a long, miserable winter. It also heralds the arrival of shorter nights and longer days, which cheers me up no end. I also tried to explain the difference between the well-known Spring Equinox and the lesser-known Spring Equilux which resulted in me declaring afterwards that I needed a lie down.

These two annual milestones are determined by scientists who use the rising and the setting of the sun to calculate the length of daytime versus night. They are each measured slightly differently, which is why we have the two.

Alastair Smith, whose wonderful photograph of a sunrise over Runswick Bay accompanied the column, contacted me to say: “Thank you for the credit Sarah. Your explanation of the difference is deserving of a lie down, however make sure it is in the Spring sunshine. Wishing you a great year!”

And Caroline Newnham said: “It’s all a bit mind boggling for me…I need to lie down after reading it. I understand the Latin but that’s as far as it goes!”

I asked if any of you also had a favourite day and for Karl Lynch it is December 25th: “To me Christmas Day is about sharing and creating memories with loved ones. I believe there’s a child in every one of us, and it brings back memories of feeling safe triggered by the smell of Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas, Sarah,” he says.

Although I do love Christmas Day, the fact that it is such hard work for hosts and ridiculously expensive means it lies further down the ‘favourite day’ rankings for me.

Mother’s Day has not long gone, and that too rates highly on my list because it gives me an excuse to lounge about while my boys pamper and spoil me. They also send me cards in which they write really lovely things, expressing their feelings in a way that they are unable to do face to face. In general, girls and women find it easier to talk openly about their deep emotions than men and boys.

That is a sweeping generalisation, but nevertheless it is a fact that suicide is the biggest killer of males under 50, and three quarters of all suicide victims are men. Not unburdening themselves of their innermost struggles is given as a major contributor.

Undoubtedly women can struggle too, but we are far more likely to share our difficulties with close friends and family, who can then offer crucial emotional support.

One thing I taught my boys when they were very little was to say how they felt when they wrote a greetings card. It was a way to get them to express themselves without the embarrassment of doing it out loud or face to face. For example, instead of the simple ‘To Granny, love from Ollie’ I’d ask them to think of something they really liked about their granny to write down, and so the contents of the card would be more meaningful to her.

They continued to do that into their teens and adulthood, and now, with all of them in their 20s, they write truly heartfelt comments in the cards they send to me and their closest loved ones.

I cannot say if it has helped them in terms of expressing their feelings in other areas of life, and they certainly have not escaped their mental health ups and downs, but I do think it has given them a little leg up in the ability to talk openly about their states of mind.

And sometimes, it is the little things that matter.

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 18th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 16th April 2025

No stone unturned

The huge stone trough I spotted in someone’s garden. How did it get there?

The deliberate diagonal markings of the mason’s tool can clearly be seen

Do you remember a while back I wrote about stone masons, and the incredible skills that went into creating the distinctive masonry that features in many homes on the North York Moors? Masons had their own particular way of marking, and the ‘posher’ homes often featured the more labour-intensive herringbone pattern, while more basic patterns were used for less fancy constructions.

I was reminded of those stone masons the other day when I came across a magnificent trough in the back garden of a home near York. I was so captivated by it that it distracted me from the job I was meant to be doing. Thankfully, the clients were interested in hearing what I knew about the markings on the trough. Until I turned up, they’d not considered much about its past and how it had got there.

What initially struck me was the size of the thing. It was between five and six feet long, and about two to three feet wide and the almost same in depth. The internal and external surfaces all featured the distinctive markings made by the stone mason’s tool in a uniform and deliberate diagonal pattern.

It appeared to have been formed out of a single piece of rock because I could not see any joins. I guessed the trough was at least a couple of hundred years old, maybe more, and we all wondered how this huge, heavy beast had got there, if indeed it had ever been transported from elsewhere. The owners said their house was at one time a farm, built in the 1700s, and so it is possible the trough has been in that spot in their garden for up to 300 years.

This is the point where I appeal to those among you who have grown up on ancient farmsteads, or who are familiar with the history of such troughs. I have some questions for you.

– Would the trough have been built from a single piece of masonry?

– If so, how long would it take to hew out all the stone to make such a trough?

– I understand pickaxes were used. Is that true?

– Would it have been built onsite? Or transported from elsewhere? If it was moved, how did they do it in the days before mechanisation?

– This trough has no outlet for water to drain out, so what would it have been used for (It is very deep, so only suitable for big livestock, if indeed that’s what it actually is)?

– Could it be anything other than an ancient water container for animals?

It is one of those occasions where I wish my dad was here, because I am certain he would have been able to answer all those questions. In fact, ancient horse troughs feature heavily in one of his series of books, the Inspector Montague Pluke collection. The eccentric inspector’s hobby, between solving murders, is to seek out and catalogue long forgotten drinking troughs on the North York Moors. I’m sure my dad would have done plenty of research into these often ignored but common features of the landscape. Next time I go home, I will be rifling through his old files!

Before I took over these columns eight years ago, I would have barely given the trough a second glance. But I have learned so much about the lives and traditions of our part of the world, thanks to having to sit down and write them each week, that I’ve found myself appreciating the world around me in a lot more depth. The history, folklore, traditions and skills of our wonderful neck of the woods mean so much more to me now. It really is a blessing, and I must not only thank my dad (for if it wasn’t for his passing, I would not be doing this), but also all of you who continue to read my columns, and who get in touch to help me solve my little mysteries. Your contributions play such an important role, for without them, much of this stuff would be forgotten. Who knows if the following generations will ever be interested, but unless we put our memories down in writing, they will be lost forever.

So, from me to you, please accept a great big THANK YOU!

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 11th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 9th April 2025

Who’s going to watch over us?

Dad signing books in the garden wearing his silver watch

Dad having a cuppa a few years later wearing his smart gold watch

Following my story a couple of weeks ago about some friends who were reunited with lost possessions, Michael Brown from Stokesley got in touch with his own tale. If you recall, one friend, Aisling, thought her diamond wedding earrings had been stolen, only to have them given back to her 10 years later after they’d been found in an old jacket pocket. Another friend, Stefan, was reunited with his smart suit jacket after it had been accidentally donated to the school fair and sold for 50p. Stefan bumped into the new owner wearing it on the street who sold it back to him for 50p.

Michael’s story centres around a Christmas party for members of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents. As District President, Michael was invited to the Newcastle branch’s party in Ponteland one year. He’d been planning to drive back home afterwards but was worn out after a long and tiring journey and on top of that, the weather was awful. Having learned that the pub did not have accommodation, the evening’s host, Richard, offered him a room in his home for the night.

Richard and his wife Karen were very warm hosts and provided Michael with most of what he needed for the night, including a dressing gown.

Michael explains: “The next morning, I slipped on the dressing gown and discovered a watch in the pocket. Reaching the kitchen, I presented my find to Karen. She was overjoyed. Although not hugely valuable, the watch held a lot of sentimental value as it was her grandmother’s and had been missing for quite some time.”

Whenever Michael sees Richard and Karen now, they reminisce about the occasion and Karen’s unexpected reunion with her grandmother’s long lost watch. “That evening has created a special bond between us,” says Michael.

What a lovely tale, with serendipity playing a vital part, as it so often does in stories like this. So many variables had to slot into place to enable Stefan to get his jacket back, for Aisling to recover her earrings and for Michael to discover Karen’s watch. She may never have otherwise found it had she not offered the dressing gown to Michael on his impromptu stopover. Perhaps from above, Grandmother had been influencing the way all the chips fell so that her watch and her granddaughter could be happily reunited.

It makes me wonder how many people still wear watches? I haven’t had one for years and have not missed it because there are so many clocks surrounding me, on my phone, in the car, on household appliances. Having a clock hanging on the kitchen wall that the whole family rely on is no longer necessary thanks to the electronic gadgets at our fingertips.

There’s a fair few of us who will have watches that have been passed down through the generations though. My dad used to wear his own dad’s timepiece, although in later life, a smart gold one replaced it.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked you which is the one item you’d save from a fire and wondered if you’d be practical – like a passport; or valuable – like jewellery; or sentimental – like photos. If I had to choose one of the two watches I mentioned above I’d probably save my dad’s rather than Grandad’s because I remember him wearing it with much pride and therefore has more sentimental value to me. It is a hard choice, though, and I have no doubt that I wouldn’t get rid of either unless I really had to.

Harbouring of items of sentimental value is the reason I have a garage that is still full of boxes I have not unpacked; boxes that contain a load of stuff I cannot bring myself to throw away and yet cannot face sorting out either. How does one make the decision to throw away hundreds of letters sent between myself and my best friend, or my parents, or my siblings? They become even harder to let go once the writer has passed away. But they are in a box, and unlikely to be read by anyone except me, and only now and then. What the heck do I do with them?

It makes me ask again, what you might save from a fire if you had to choose but one item?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 21st March and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 19th March 2025

Out of the fire

Betty McDonald on holiday in Southern Spain last year. She has kept diaries since she was young

I’ve had some more feedback from readers on the subject of photographs. Betty MacDonald, who will turn 90 this year (I hope you don’t mind me mentioning that, Betty!) writes: “I have many photographs from years gone by, and memories of sending them off to be developed and printed, and especially onto slides…we used to have many an evening watching a slide show.”

She adds: “I’ve kept diaries for decades, which I enjoy writing, and call my ‘reference library’. I can look up what I did 50 years ago on any given date. These are for me only. I have mentioned to my daughter when the time comes to find a spot in the garden and burn them all, although this might not be possible as I fear the fire brigade might have to be in attendance!

“Queen Elizabeth kept a diary and at 6 o’clock every day she sat down to write in it. So I feel as though I have been in good company…I’ve enjoyed my time with all of my collections of stuff over the years, but nothing is forever.”

Betty’s daughter send me a sweet note about her mother too: “She’s a fantastic mam and nana, always has an interesting story to tell and has such a happy outlook on life.” And at the end she added: “P.S. I won’t burn the diaries!”

Do many people still keep daily diaries? My gut tells me not, because everything is so ‘visual’ today that it is rare to find someone who takes the time to sit down and write about their day. I did it when I was a teenager, and when I was away on a gap year in the mid-1980s. I also wrote diaries when I went travelling in South-East Asia because my dad said I would regret it if I didn’t. They came in useful on my return when the newspaper I worked for asked me to do a series of travelogues about each country I visited. It would have been impossible without the diaries, and so I was very grateful for my dad’s advice.

I occasionally look back upon them now with an understanding of why it was so important to keep a contemporaneous record. There is so much detail that I would never have remembered, and they take me back to a time when I was young and carefree. The 1980s don’t seem that long ago, and yet so much has changed since then that they make a fascinating read. They may not mean much to anyone else, but perhaps my children will one day find them interesting.

Alan Graham also got in touch to say: “I always read your piece and was interested in the recent topic of printing photos. Like others I rarely if ever print photos nowadays but I do print and enlarge those that are good, clear and of lasting interest…and mount them in a traditional photo album, the sort with blank pages and a sheet of tracing paper between…Double-sided sellotape is all that’s needed on the back and they never come adrift, even decades later. A short typed label under each photo (who, where, when) adds a permanent memory.

“I’ve got precious pictures of my daughter growing up, my wife, even my cars and motorbikes going back 40 years and these albums are the things I’d save – as they say – in a fire.”

And that prompts me to ask, what would you save from a fire? Would it be something practical like your passport, or something valuable, like your jewellery? Or like Alan, would it be pictures of your loved ones?

For me, the material stuff means nothing, but there are certain things that cannot ever be replaced, such as signed copies of my dad’s books, handwritten letters from loved ones from years ago. I also have a large collection of birthday and Mother’s Day cards that my children have sent me every year since they were able to write and in which they have written very special messages that I never want to lose.

But, as Betty says, we cannot take everything with us, can we. So if you had to choose just one item to save, what would it be and why? Do get in touch via my contact page to let me know.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 14th March and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 5th March 2025

Friend thrown a life jacket

Stefan’s expensive work jacket was accidentally sold at the school fair

Last year I wrote several columns about things people had lost, things they had found, and about St Anthony to whom the faithful pray if they need help finding a misplaced item.

That subject cropped up again recently when I was on a ramble with my friend Jane and she told me a couple of remarkable stories that I felt I had to share.

Jane and her neighbour Aisling get on with each other very well, attend each other’s parties, exchange birthday gifts and such like. They also swap items of clothing, if they find they are not wearing something but think the other might like it. One such item was a jacket that Aisling gave to Jane several years ago. Although Jane liked the jacket and placed it in her wardrobe, it stayed there unworn for a long time. Finally, a few weeks ago while planning for a night out, Jane remembered the jacket and thought it would go very well with what she wanted to wear. She dug it out and tried it on to see if it suited. Instinctively she put her hands in the pockets and to her surprise, found there was something left inside one of them.

Pulling it out, she discovered it was a pair of beautiful diamond earrings. Astounded, she immediately took them round to show Aisling. Her neighbour was also astounded – and delighted. She revealed that they were the pair of very expensive earrings she had worn on her wedding day and which had been lost for at least 10 years.

Aisling and her family used to live in Singapore, and while there, they employed a cleaner. She explained to Jane that after a while, they began to suspect the cleaner of pilfering things. They had no evidence to prove it, but to be on the safe side Aisling began to hide her most precious pieces of jewellery in the pockets of the clothes hanging in her wardrobe. The problem was, over time she forgot what she had put where, and by the time they moved back to England a few years later, she had completely forgotten that she had hidden her wedding earrings in a jacket pocket. For more than 10 years, she had lived in the belief that her treasured earrings had been taken by the cleaner and that she would never see them again (to be fair, the cleaner had almost certainly stolen other items, so it was not an unreasonable assumption to make). To get them back after so long was an absolute and unexpected joy.

A similar story involved Jane’s husband Stefan. Jane’s and my own children went to the same primary school which held regular fairs and jumble sales. These occasions were good excuses to declutter our wardrobes and pass on any unwanted toys and bric-a-brac.

One year as one such fair was approaching, Jane had a good declutter and filled up the car with jumble, putting a pile of unwanted coats on the back seat before dropping them off at school.

A few days later, her husband was preparing to leave for a business meeting, and asked if she had seen his smart jacket.

“Where did you last have it?’ asked Jane

“I left it on the back seat of the car.”

You can imagine Stefan’s choice response when he discovered that his expensive tailored jacket had been sold for a song at the school fair. Jane had unknowingly scooped it up with the other coats on the back seat and handed it over with the rest of the jumble. They both assumed Stefan would never see his jacket again, and Jane was banished to the dog house.

But the story does not end there. Later that week, tempers having cooled, the couple were out for a walk when they noticed a stranger walking towards them. He was wearing a very familiar item of clothing.

Stefan, being a lot braver than I would have been, stopped the man and asked about the fine jacket he was wearing. The man confirmed he had picked it up from the local school fair for 50p.

With a bit of astute negotiating, and offers of giving the man back the 50p, Stefan and his jacket were happily reunited.

Do you have any stories of unexpected reunions?

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 28th Feb and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 26th Feb 2025

Seeing the bigger picture

Clare Powell has photo books printed at the end of each year as a legacy for future generations.

My column about family photos a couple of weeks ago sparked quite a discussion. I was concerned that most of us have stopped printing pictures stored on mobile devices like phones and tablets. Would these photos be lost to future generations who don’t have the passwords to access them?

Mary Raynar has a solution to that problem: “I get mine printed every month, otherwise they don’t get looked at. It’s my job in the winter months to put them into albums. It is much more pleasurable than scrolling on the phone.”

I’m impressed that Mary diligently does that every month. I had always planned to get back to sorting the photos on my iPad, but then so many years have passed now that the job has turned into a monster. If you don’t keep on top of it like Mary, that is the problem.

Liz Davidson confesses that she has lots of old family photos that have not been put into albums. “My sons will have no idea who all these people are. We keep saying we will sort them out one day.”

And that is at the heart of the issue. If the physical photos do not have names, places and dates written on the back, those who look at them in the future will have no idea who it is, what they were doing, or where they were taken. Recording these small details is so important for our descendants to piece together their family’s roots.

Clare Powell is one of those ‘old school’ people who still has her photos printed: “My first grandbaby is due in April and I will be printing pictures. I have framed photos all over the house.”

I stropped printing out my photos and putting them into albums in about 2012 and I do regret it. But Clare has a great solution: “My friend said she waited to the end of the year, then selected a few from each month to make a photo book for the year. I made my first one in 2012 and have made one every year since. Waiting to the end of the year focuses your mind and you get good at editing…During Covid I re-did all my old photo albums and as I had over 40 it was quite a task. As I did it I was conscious that this was a legacy and a lot of the pictures would mean nothing to my children…I always label them so they will know who’s who.”

Photo books come with your pictures already printed in the book, which is a lot less effort than physically putting individual snaps into albums. Clare’s have evolved into diaries in which she writes a review of the year, with captions and dates.

Lynn Catena admits: “I haven’t printed any photos off my phone for ages, although I really think I should print some of my grandsons.”

She adds: “During the Covid lockdown I wrote a ‘to do’ list and going through photos was somewhere on it. I did cull many photos and negatives when I downsized my house 7+ years ago although lately I’m just trying to label those I have on my phone…there’s a picture of someone’s baby… now I’m wondering who it is!”

Lynn Catena thinks she should at least have some of the photos of her grandsons she keeps on her phone printed out, including this one of Cal, born just a few weeks ago.

Lucien Smith has another suggestion: “I do at least print out my Facebook posts using Pastbook, which pops up at the end of each year. Other than that, I don’t print them out.”

Caroline Newnham no longer prints them either: “I’ve stopped getting them printed as there are so many. My husband would print them all but where would they go? We already have boxes of photos in the loft…I’ve made a start on a regular yearbook…It concentrates the mind on the big moments of the year. The first was in 2023 and is great to look back over. It wasn’t cheap and took quite a bit of time and effort but is the way forward I think.”

Neil McBride says: “We often discuss the idea. That’s as far as it gets. Great idea printing an annual.”

Whichever way we want to preserve our memories, whether in print or digitally, these comments show that it is clear still that we need plenty of time to do it.

And how many of us have enough of that?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me via the ‘Contact’ tab at the top right of this page.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 21st Feb and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 19th Feb 2025

A doze of the flew

Lemsip is helping me keep on top of my symptoms of the flue flew FLU!

When I took over writing this weekly column from my dad in 2017, I was aware that it came with a number of burdens. Firstly, to step into my dad’s shoes, which are substantial, secondly, to do that every single week for 52 weeks a year, and thirdly, to keep coming up with interesting stuff to write about.

Fulfilling those requirements becomes even more difficult when you are feeling below par. As I write this, I am laid low with my third fluey bug in as many months. The first was definitely the worst, with me confined to bed for three full days, unable to do much more than make a cup of tea without feeling like I’d just run a marathon. The second was similar, but I was confined to bed for just the one day. This time, I don’t think it is as bad, but I have been full of cold and sneezing for several days now, yet still able to carry on as normal. I went to bed last night thinking that by today (day 4) I would be beginning to get better, only to find I woke up feeling like a limp dishrag. Motivation and inspiration are staying well away, clearly afraid of the germs lingering in the air.

It is at times like these when I am more grateful than usual for readers getting in touch with their own stories and comments because it means I can shamelessly use what they send me to fill column inches.

This week it is Albert Elliot from Castleton who, in my time of need, has come galloping to my rescue. He writes: “I was amused to read (last year!) the comments in your article in December on spelling mistakes. I wondered if you had ever seen this piece of doggerel that I picked up somewhere many years ago (see below)?

“In the early days of computers, before predictive text, spellcheckers were used, or so I understand (I am not particularly computer literate). I think it quite amusing. I still struggle with correct spelling myself and often make blunders, although I don’t like predictive text systems as they ‘jump the gun’ and get in the way! As far as I know the piece is by that famous author called ‘Anon’.”

This is the poem that Albert sent me, and it did make me chuckle because it is very clever and takes me back to the early days of PCs and Microsoft Word. Ahh things were so much simpler then (were they?).

Spell-cheque

I halve a spelling chequer

It came with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks I do knot sea

Eye strike a quay and type a word

And weight four it too say

Weather eye I am write or wrong

It shows me strait a weigh

As soon as a missed ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can putt the error rite

It’s rare lea ever wrong

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

The spelling’s perfect awl the weigh

My chequer tolled me sew!

As this poem demonstrates, and as those who have been caught out more recently by Autocorrect understand, it is never a good idea to rely on technology to do work you really ought to do yourself – that is to check your copy and messages before you send them to anyone else. Otherwise it could be very embarrassing indeed.

Albert also recalled a time when he met my dad: “Your father, Peter Walker, kindly came along to my writers’ group (the Egton Bridge Writers Group – still in full vigour and of which I remain a member) and gave us an interesting talk on himself and his writing career…Although this was a long time ago, I remember the talk was fascinating and thoroughly enjoyed by the whole group. He has left a lasting legacy with his Heartbeat stories and other Yorkshire writings.”

I never tire of hearing about tales involving my dad, many of which I would never know if people didn’t get in touch.

So very many thanks to Albert, and on that note, I’m off back to bed with a Lemsip. Normal service will, I hope, resume next week.

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me via the ‘Contact’ tab at the top right of this page.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 24th Jan and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 22nd Jan 2025

Time to make decisions

Horacio Romeo’s beloved antique mirror has to stay in Buenos Aires, Argentina, because it is too big to bring to his current home in Brazil.

Following my column about the Hugh Pannell clock owned by Arkansas-resident Sandra Parkerson, David Severs has been in touch. David is a descendant of the 18th century Northallerton clockmaker and was able to provide some useful historical context about it. If you recall, the grandfather clock has been in Sandra’s family for more than 200 years, but she is looking to find it a home because it will be too big to take to a new apartment.

David is compiling a record of Pannell’s work and explains that it is unusual to find ‘CLOCK & WATCH-MAKER’ engraved on the name boss. “This is very rare indeed and to find yet another Pannell example is exciting,” he says.

He explains that Sandra’s walnut case is not original: “I have found well over a hundred Hugh Pannell clocks and not one is in a walnut case.” Most of Pannell’s clocks were in cases of mahogany, oak or pine. David has found only one pine example due to the wood not being durable, and mahogany is also quite rare because he would have had to transport it by cart from west coast ports such as Liverpool, which was far more costly than a readily available oak case. Mahogany cases were the preserve of the wealthy, and housed Pannell’s finest pieces. They became more common once the rail network reached Northallerton in 1841, well after Hugh Pannell’s time. Oak cases with mahogany veneer were known as ‘typical Yorkshire cases’ in 1774 when Pannell was working.

David says about Sandra’s clock: “The decoration on the pediment is not something I have seen over here and the split trunk door is also new to me. It is possible that the clock mechanism alone was sent to the USA and then placed into Sandra’s mahogany case upon arrival.”

David adds: “I have found that some 30% of Hugh’s surviving clocks are now marriages which is perhaps not surprising given that it is 236 years and more since he was making clocks…I am aware of his clocks in California, Florida, New Orleans and San Francisco as well as this one in Arkansas. Clocks by his son Joshua…have found their way to Iowa and California and one of his watches to Florida.”

This brings me on to the subject of what to do with meaningful objects you have collected in your lifetime.

Regular reader Clare Powell says: “I inherited my dad’s grandfather clock…and decided to sell it later on. You get nothing for them at auction, nobody wants or has the room for them, even old ones. But I discovered it was handmade by a company in Somerset and he had paid £3,500 for it. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it for £150, so I am still stuck with it!”

In a previous column I mentioned a small wooden box my grandad gave me which I hope one of my sons will keep. Clare explains that the thought of what to do with all her family heirlooms keeps her awake at night: “I am not sure we should burden the next generation with all our ‘stuff’. If you tell them why everything means so much to you, will they feel ridden with guilt if they are not able to keep it all? Then again, if you don’t tell them, then they may wish they did know the story of certain items, like you and your box.”

Horacio Romeo from Brazil, who contacted me through my web page (countrymansdaughter.com), has a similar problem to Sandra in that he has a beautiful mirror that is too big for his current abode: “I love it and enjoy looking at it when I go to Buenos Aires (Argentina) but bringing it here is out of the question.”

Leni Ella says: “My nana used to say, ‘If you want it, put your Monica on it’, the only way you could bagsy something in her house.” (I am assuming Nana meant ‘moniker’ and ‘Monica’ is a family joke!).

My aunt, Liz Davidson, revealed that she has a family heirloom: “I have a crocheted white bedspread that came from my dad and one of his aunties I think. It’s very heavy when you put it on the bed.”

There is only so much the following generation will want to keep so what, I wonder, will happen to grandad’s bedspread?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me via the ‘Contact’ tab at the top right of this page.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 17th Jan and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 15th Jan 2025